Toni:
Leave it to Francesca. I’m so sorry. I wish I was there to help you.
Tearswell up in my eyes. Antonella wasn’t home long. She was in New York, getting her master’s degree and teaching before coming back this year to teach here in Chicago.
I shouldn’t be this emotional. If Dad were to see me crying, he’d list it as another reason he’s done with me. Anything is possible ammunition for ‘it’s time you have a husband’ and ‘it’s not proper for girls your age to be unwed’ and all that misogynistic bullshit.
The walls are closing in on me. My college graduation date looms in the near future, and an arranged marriage will be quick to follow.
Toni’s message gives me hope though. Maybe being married off to whoever Dad picks won’t be so bad after all. It surely can’t get much worse than the work I’ve been doing since I graduated from high school. Getting my bachelor’s degree was a huge compromise to his plan. So, the last five years, I’ve been dragging out progress on my degree, ‘learning’ to manage Mom and Dad’s entire house, and cooking practically every meal everyone eats.
Maybe I’ll get lucky, and it’ll be a charming prince instead of some beast of a crime boss.I snort at my own joke and flour my hands so I can get back to work.
With the small bit of relief that my cousin is safe in her new life, I breathe a little easier and go back to rolling dough.
My phone beeps.
Toni:
Could you dehydrate some starter for me? Buns from scratch for the rest of my life with instant yeast will be the death of me.
I giggleand go to the refrigerator where the family starter has been chilling in her antique glass jar. Something told me when I woke up this morning not to feed the sourdough starter, and here it is. Toni needs me to get her some.
“Okay, Nona Agnesia, it’s time to make you a new daughter for a new home,” I tell the little glass jar as I set it out in the warmth of the kitchen.
I’ll still finish making Dad’s lunch first, but giving the starter some fresh air and warmth before I feed and divide her feels better than keeping her in the cold fridge.
In the family for forever, everyone calls the starter Nona Agnesia. Even back in Italy, everyone refers to the starter as Nona. As the grandmother of the family, she’s been told all the kitchen secrets. She’s heard everything before, and I think it’s why she’s so spirited.
Mom doesn’t believe in all the ‘nonsense’ I do. Like how Nona knows when the family is upset and rises more quickly as if she wants us to make more bread.
I made the mistake of telling Mom about Nona Agnesia and how she works. It got me one ofthoselooks that only mothers do so well. She calls the things I say like that ‘witchcraft,’ and has made me go to extra catechism classes in the past for all the ‘blasphemy’ I bring around her.
She can say what she wants, but I can tell if she’s been banging around in the kitchen. Everything feels more hostile. Nona Agnesia knows, too, and doesn’t bubble as pretty. Heck, I would go so far as to say the produce tastes more bitter and less sweet because of her rage.
Leticia:
Nona has started making a daughter for you.
So, in OTHER news. There was another attempted kidnapping. I swear, I cannot for the life of me figure out why Berto doesn’t come out with it and say it. He and Dad have used the same code for it since the one time they took me ice skating at the winter carnival.
Toni:
You’re kidding me. The least they should be doing is telling you so that you know what to be on the lookout for.
Leticia:
Instead I get lectures about how I must stay vigilant and the two of them talking in code about dragons coming to take the princess.
I’m twenty-three not twelve.
No, you know what, not even cousin Martina would fall for that bullshit. I’m twenty-three not eight.
Toni sympathizes with me,but it’s no longer her place to try to talk sense into Berto and Dad, so I don’t expect her to offer.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m in the middle of talking with Toni through text about Violetta and Nicolas and cousin Sarena’s engagement plans, when the hairs on the back of my neck rise. The feeling of being watched creeps in, but it’s not the malicious kind. Not the kind of being watched that makes you want to hide under the covers or put your back up to the wall so no one can sneak up on you.
We weren’t supposed to know about the cameras in the house. But when it becomes your responsibility to clean, you’re not doing a very good job if you don’t notice things like cameras.
